The man who intrigued, inspired and amazed me with his cinematic masterpieces - David Lynch, is the king of film absurdity. Absurdity - a rather not too talked about term in film language is a cult theater specter, bravely taken up by playwrights like Beckett, Genet, Ionesco and several others. As absurd our life is, as absurd our feelings are, as absurd our existence and creation is, the art which is trying to express these feelings will be. A painter turned director, Lynch discovered a space in the film medium in which he could be intuitively absurd and dramatically consistent at the same time. He discovered the sub-conscious cinema. May be it was Bunuel who discovered it, may be Leos Carax puts it more perfectly, but it was Lynch who had the ability to haunt you with his film for your entire life.
Six men getting sick, The Alphabet, The Amputee - these are not the themes of short film anyone would choose who wants to be a director. Neither were his paintings ordinary. 'Box of Bees' depicting a weird shape inside which there is a box is one example. David wanted his painting to move and thus he explored the option of moving pictures. However, the paintings or the short films were always about some deep dark thing inside of us like fear, death or a normal day to day object depicted in such dark shades that one would be scared of it. These expressions, in form of paintings, were mere representation of a man's sub conscious, his perspective which is consistently dark and haunting. It can probably be argued that if he wouldn't have channelized his energy to create things and let go off that emotion, he would have become a sociopath (No disrespect Sir).
His sensitivity to things that looked ugly to many and his constant touch with dreams perhaps helped him to see the sub-conscious, making him able to express beyond the actuality or reality of an object, incident or feeling. The art of of it was known to him and it didn't take much long for Lynch to excel in the craft.
The Art:
Like anything instinctive, a bird's fly or a frogs path from and back to the water, his original films are always circular i.e. it starts where it ends and ends where it starts. Only Earaserhead, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire are his truly original works in which he didn't adapt from anything. This circular paradigm in a film (when not forcefully or manipulatively done) gives a feeling of completeness in incompleteness and also intrigues for a second watch.
The vibrant use of limited colors is also critical to his films. As a painter, he chooses the color which best communicates the feeling or mystery of the moment and incorporates it in his frames. Grey and yellow, red and blue, black and white are some commonly used and repeated colors in all his films. This specific use of color sets the mood and tone of the scenes perfectly.
Everything is taking place in the sub-conscious. A million times you would have heard that the first part is the dream and last reality and vice versa for some, but neither is true. The entire film is a product of subconscious. Let's take Lost Highway for instance. You can't say that the first part is reality and the later part is a dream. If it is, then how can Fred can listen to his own voice saying "Dick Laurent is dead." In that movie, the tape that Fred and his wife were receiving was also part of the sub-conscious. It was Fred's discovery or frustration of Renee being a porn star and her disloyalty symbolized as an approaching danger through video cassettes. Everything in each of his film is an amalgamation of reality, fantasy and escape.
The drama and expositions are just out of the ordinary. Each intense scene or dialogue is complete on it's own, it can be taken up and hanged in the wall if possible. Club Silencio of Mulholland Drive, Fred and Mystery Man's conversation, Twinkie's ghost scene and many more.
The feeling of something can only be explained with something absurd, not with actual series of events. Which painting is an exact recreation of a real thing? Lynch has excelled in communicating feelings like fear through Club Silencio for example or evil through mystery man or mystery though a chopped off finger or loneliness through the landscapes of Earaserhead.
If I could do anything, I would frame his running film scenes inside a cave and create something quite opposite of an amusement park for people to be alive to feelings like fear and death.
Without you, David Lynch, I would have never loved film making.
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